Ever since Illwinter's publishing contract expired and they rereleased Dominions 3: The Awakening on Desura, the official forums for the game have been located there.

Furthermore, the status of the forums here is as follows:

The publishing contract between Illwinter Game Design and Shrapnel Games stipulated that the Dominions forums here would be maintained for one year after the expiry of the publishing contract.

The period stipulated by the contract ends on November 15th, 2013

After that, the future of these forums is determined solely by Shrapnel Games.

For those interested, these are some of the places on the World Wide Web where other Dominions 3 communities can be found. This list courtesy of former longtime member of these forums, Calahan.

Dominions 3 Forum at Desura - This is the official forum for Dominions 3 and earlier versions. It is run by Illwinter and their designated administrators (Edi, with Calahan as his second). The membership is many and varied, with old veterans from Shrapnel and other ports of call.Dominions 3 Forum at Desura

Dom3Mods - This community was formed after several prominent players were banned from the Shrapnel forum or left in the wake of other members who were banned. The membership includes well known and respected members of the community such as Sombre (who founded the forum), Calahan, Fantomen, Elmokki, Burnsaber and others.Dom3Mods forum

The Gaming Den - They play almost exclusively vanilla games, and a few old Shrapnel faces have taken up residence here. Namely Frank Trollman, K, and Dr.Praetorious.The Gaming Den

BrokenForum - Seems to be a relatively new community setup by Nate from the Qt3 community.The Broken Forum

Quarter To Three - A fairly active community that usually have a few games on the go. Arguably the friendliest community there is.Quarter to Three gaming forum The Qt3 forum has several Dominions 3 related thread, but only the main Dominions 3 thread is linked here.

Absolute Games (Russian) - This community is probably not active anymore (or at least not on this site). Some familiar Shrapnel faces used to play here, such as the long time veterans Ano, Dimaz, WingedDog, Kuritza, Karnoza (there are a LOT of Russian players who are seriously good at the game). The playing community seems to have migrated to the dedicated Dominions3 forum that is coming up next.Absolute Games

Un-named Russian Community (Russian) - It seems the players from Absolute Games have moved here. Don't know anything about this forum apart from recognising a few names (past and present) from Shrapnel. (and they play CBM judging by the game list)http://dominions.ucoz.ru/forum/

Paradox Dominions Community - You will need to be a registered member to view the thread, and if I understand correctly, you also need to have a game registered as well (to view the thread). It appears they run at most 1-2 games at a time (Wetfeet/foot series of games on llamaserver), and Peter Ebbesen and Jarkko are the familiar Shrapnel faces that play there.Dominions 3 on Paradox

Bay12 - Very smilar to Paradox. They run 1-2 games at a time (series of games with the Bay12 prefix on llamaserver). I don't know much about the community though and I don't see any gnarly old vets there that I recognise.Bay12

Punta de Lanza (Spanish) - You need to be registered to view the thread. Another community I don't know much about, apart from recognising a few names from ShrapnelPunta de Lanza

Something Awful - This is regarded as just about the most active community out there, and they experiment with a wide variety of different game formats. Some of the best LP's (Lets Play) about the game are to be found on this forum, and they also have they own series of mods (Awesome mods, Forbidden Friendship). Their Mega thread (linked) sometimes becomes available to members only for a period of time though, so if you want uninterrupted access to the Mega thread (and their other Dom3 threads and archives) then you need to register at Something Awful (costs a one-time fee of $9.95).Dominions 3 Mega-thread on Something Awful

Rock Paper Shotgun - There appears to be at least one game currently active here. Don't know anything about this community though, and don't recognise any names.Rock, Paper, Shotgun

RPGnet - Seems to be a very active gaming forum, and this is a link to their second Dominions game.Dominions 3 on RPGnet

Grogheads - A fairly new Dominions 3 community on a forum dedicated to strategy wargaming. They have a few games going and seem to be a tight knit and pleasant bunch.Grogheads Dom3 forum